More information on Braxton and Coffin's fiscal packages

A member of the senior lay leadership at Riverside during Bill Coffin’s tenure corrected my assertion on this page that Bill’s salary was $30,000. In fact, Rev. Coffin’s salary was $60,000 when he left Riverside, an amount was known to the senior lay leadership on a confidential basis. During Coffin’s public divorce trial, his salary became public knowledge.

Based on the Consumer Price Index at http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm,
$60,000 in 1987 has the same buying power as $112,952 in 2009. Thus, the equivalent present-day salary for Dr. Braxton would be $112,952, and not the $250,000 the church is paying him. In short, Dr. Braxton is being paid a base salary approximately double Dr. Coffin’s.

As regards Dr. Coffin’s housing, Riverside paid the rent for his two-bedroom apartment on Riverside Drive above Tiemann Place, which had a view of the Hudson River. Having myself lived in that neighborhood from 1978 until 2007, I can assert with confidence that in the late 1980’s Morningside Heights was nothing like the luxury neighborhood in which Dr. Braxton’s housing is found on the present-day Upper West Side.

I do not know the market value of the apartment Dr. Coffin lived in. However, having myself lived about a mile south of his apartment in a two-bedroom rental apartment on Riverside Drive with views of the Hudson, based on my own rental costs, the rental cost of Dr. Coffin’s home was likely less than $1,500 per month in that era. In other words, Riverside was likely paying something in the range of $18,000 per year for Dr. Coffin’s housing. Today, Riverside funds Dr. Braxton’s luxury apartment rental costing nearly $18,000 per month; the same amount the church spent annually for Dr. Coffin’s housing. In other words, Dr. Braxton’s housing subsidy is nearly twelve times that paid for Dr. Coffin.

Dr. Coffin did not feel he needed an apartment with space to entertain church guests, since Riverside Church has plenty of space for entertaining visiting guests.
Riverside also did not fund any domestic help, gym membership, or private schooling for Dr. Coffin or his family.

Unlike Dr. Braxton, who rationalizes his luxury financial package as “combat pay” needed to “make him whole,” Dr. Coffin felt he was properly remunerated with a small fraction of Dr. Braxton’s total package, even after the respective numbers are adjusted for inflation. Coffin donated any “gifts” and wedding service “gratuities” he was given to a charity backed by Riverside. Coffin got very upset when another clergyperson on the staff received an inheritance from a member and kept it. Coffin felt that it led to conflicts of interest when staff got close with members of wealth.

Unlike Dr. Braxton, Bill Coffin was a national superstar who brought in big crowds. Both membership and donations soared under his leadership. He donated freely of his time and energy for myriad national and international social justice causes, including voting rights, nuclear disarmament, support for the end of South African apartheid, and negotiating for the release of American hostages held in Tehran during the Iranian Revolution. Despite his myriad activities, Coffin never slighted his pastoral functions. Under Dr. Braxton’s leadership, both attendance and donations have both plummeted. Dr. Braxton’ sole social justice effort is lobbying for white reparations for slavery.

Dr. Braxton's earnings from Riverside Church

The New York Daily News and New York Times have reported that Riverside is paying Dr. Braxton more than $600,000 per year, more than ten times what Rev. William Sloane Coffin was paid during his lengthy tenure as Riverside’s senior minister. In response, former church council head, Dr. Billy Jones, claimed that Braxton’s package was merely $465,000, a figure Dr. Jones claims is acceptable because it is on par with other ministerial salaries. Note that these numbers do not represent Braxton’s entire household income because they do not include his wife’s earnings in the finance industry, or his income from book sales and speaking engagements. Riverside is currently paying him for study-leave to prepare for one of these outside engagements.

It may help to put these numbers in context. The median annual household earning in the U.S. for 2007 was $53,514, and in Manhattan was $62,027. In that same year, 17.6% of Manhattan’s residents lived in poverty.

In 2009, U.S. taxpayers are paying President Obama approximately $469,000 per year. Even without considering his other income sources, Riverside’s payment of $465,000 per year places Braxton in the top 1% of U.S. taxpayers. According to bankrate.com’s list of the top 20 highest-paying jobs, without including his wife’s income or his other income sources, Braxton is near the top of the list:

1. Chief executive officer: $1.18 million
2. Chief operating officer: $690,219
3. Top-subsidiary executive: $624,831
4. Top-sector executive: $525,657
5. Top-division executive: $510,292

[Dr. Braxton’s Riverside earnings: $465,000]

6. Intermediate corporate financial associate: $459,784
7. Heart transplant surgeon: $446,666
8. Cardiothoracic surgeon: $446,255
9. Top international executive: $425,839
10. Chief financial officer: $418,772
11. Top administrative executive: $410,335
12. Top legal executive: $404,235
13. Top mergers and acquisitions executive: $399,581
14. Top mortgage executive: $399,485
15. Top power trading executive: $391,911
16. Neurosurgeon: $386,906
17. Top investment executive: $386,148
18. Chief of surgery: $380,756
19. Senior corporate financial associate: $376,761
20. Top retail banking executive: $373,383

Dr. Braxton pays $216,000 per year for the rental of a luxury Manhattan penthouse, or $18,000 per month. The median rental cost for a 4-bedroom Manhattan apartment is $4,995 per month. Braxton has claimed he needs luxury housing to entertain Riverside guests. He is in error. Christ did not entertain his disciples in luxury housing. Neither did Mother Theresa. Ghandi entertained international dignitaries in a mud hut.

Some, particularly members of traditions that pay their ministers luxury salaries, argue that these numbers are appropriate because ministers are doing God’s most important work. Christ’s example shows this view is in error. Christ did not live in luxury. He did not demand that his disciplines empty their pockets to fill his. When he created bread and wine, he did not fill his personal pantry and wine-cellar. He used his efforts to nourish the hungry.

Serving the public is a privilege. Many people who are highly educated and earn substantial salaries choose to forgo their income to serve the public. Corporate executives routinely leave huge salaries to serve their country in government jobs or as educators. Media executives work for public radio and television for considerably lower salaries. Physicians and attorneys can earn six-figure salaries, but those who choose to serve the public routinely agree to earn salaries near the U.S. median income level. Two other examples of men who have chosen lives of service instead of profit are Dr. Paul Farmer, who founded Partners in Health & provides quality health care to Haitians, Peruvians, and incarcerated Russians; and Greg Morgenson, who founded the Central Asia institute, which builds schools for girls in the most rural parts of Afghanistan.

Dr. Braxton has claimed that he needed this income package to “make him whole” for leaving his teaching position. The term “to make whole” is a legal term for reparations or restitution for fiscal harm. If someone steals your television, justice is served if you are “made whole” with the dollar value of your stolen television. Choosing to change jobs is not a harm; it is not a choice that creates a need to be “made whole.” Serving as Senior Minister of an internationally renowned congregation is hardly a harm needing economic reparations. Braxton’s rhetoric is consistent with his world-view centering on the black liberation theology demand for white reparations for slavery. But, unlike his forbears, Dr. Braxton has not been enslaved. He is instead a member of the educational and financial elite. Riverside Church is now using her ministry resources to make him one of the wealthiest humans on the planet.

Founding ideas of Black Liberation Theology

For those unfamiliar with black liberation theology, which Dr. Braxton espouses and uses as the foundation of his own theological writings, the words of James Cone, the dean of "black liberation theology," who teaches that Jesus Christ himself was black and not a Jew, are instructive. Cone expresses the theology succinctly:

"Black theology refuses to accept a God who is not identified totally with the goals of the black community. If God is not for us and against white people, then he is a murderer, and we had better kill him. The task of black theology is to kill Gods who do not belong to the black community ... Black theology will accept only the love of God which participates in the destruction of the white enemy. What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love. "

(from William R Jones, "Divine Racism: The Unacknowledged Threshold Issue for Black Theology, in African-American Religious Thought: An Anthology")